Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition: Final 8

Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition - Best New Bands

London – Best New Bands’ Tony Hardy was one of forty U.K. based music writers invited by Glastonbury Festival to decide on a long list of 120 acts from thousands of entries to the 2016 Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition. Once the long list was announced, a panel including festival hosts Michael & Emily Eavis next set about the unenviable task of selecting just eight of them to go through to the live final.

Suitably eclectic in nature, the eight acts that have made it to the final stage of the 2016 Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition, which is supported by PRS for Music and the PRS for Music Foundation, are: Bossy Love, Early Ghost, Gillbanks, Hattie Whitehead, Henry Green, Lady Sanity, Marcus McCoan, and She Drew The Gun.

Best New Bands is especially pleased to announce that Marcus McCoan, one of our three choices, has made the final cut. Commiserations to our two other picks, Race the Flux and Wooden Arms, who did not get through. Though, we will keep close tabs on both these highly promising bands in the future. Meanwhile, here is a reminder of Marcus McCoan’s song that got him to the final portion of the 2016 Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition:

Marcus McCoan – “Call Out”

You can also check out a playlist of all eight finalists on SoundCloud. Glastonbury’s Emily Eavis commented: “Once again, we’ve been impressed by both the quality and quantity of new music out there in the UK and Ireland, with thousands of talented acts entering this year’s competition. It was extremely tough to narrow the 120 acts on the long list down to eight finalists, but we’re really pleased with the group of acts we’ve ended up with. I can’t wait to see them play at the live final.”

This year’s invite-only final will take place at Pilton Working Men’s Club on Saturday 9th April. The eventual winners of the 2016 Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition will perform a set on one of the main stages at this year’s Glastonbury Festival and will also be awarded a £5,000 PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development prize, to help take their songwriting and performing to the next level. Two runners-up will also each be awarded a £2,500 PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development prize.

Best New Bands will continue reporting on news concerning the 2016 Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition, as well as Glastonbury Festival 2016, which will take place from Wednesday, 22nd June to Sunday, 26th Junein Pilton, United Kingdom. 
Tony Hardy

Tony Hardy

Tony Hardy lives in Kingston upon Thames, just south-west of London, England. His background is in sales and marketing, and today combines brand marketing with copywriting and music interests in his own business called Fifty3.

Tony’s great passion in life is music and nothing gives him more pleasure than unearthing good, original new music and championing independent musicians. His association with Best New Bands brings great opportunities for this. He also writes for Consequence of Sound and is a judge for Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition.
Tony Hardy